Musical Reflections

When Barb Schommer and I presented our Self-Care Salon at the recent Mayo Clinic Holistic Wellness conference, we opened with a brief reading from the book, “The Invitation” by Oriah Mountain Dreamer.

Are you familiar with it? It is a prose poem that sparks reflection and is a declaration of intent. The beautiful words connect to the soul. Here’s just a short excerpt to inspire you:

“It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

I want to know if you can see beauty, even when it’s not pretty, every day, and if you can source your own life from its presence….”

This beautiful book is available here. You are invited…

In the first keynote presentation by Bill Manahan, MD at the Mayo Clinic’s Holistic Wellness conference in late July, he shared a quote by Dr. Oz. It is thought-provoking and may give us a fortuitous insight about the future of medicine and the health care environment.

“Energy medicine is the future of medicine. We are beginning now to understand things that we know in our hearts are true, but we could never measure. As we get better at understating how little we know about the body, we begin to realize that the next big frontier in medicine is energy medicine. It’s not the mechanistic part of the joints moving. It’s not the chemistry of our body. It’s understanding for the first time how energy influences how we feel. I think that energy and the use of energy in healing will be the biggest frontier in medicine over the next decade.”

I’m not sure when Dr. Oz said this or how far “into the decade” we are of meeting his forecasted timeline. Perhaps it doesn’t matter … it’s the journey of watching this come into full manifestation. And I, for one, feel so blessed to be alive during this exciting time!

What do you think of this quote?

I’m still reflecting on the Holistic Wellness conference that the Mayo Clinic hosted in late July. One of the keynote speakers (Dr. Henry Emmons) shared this thought-provoking quote: “Surely joy is the condition of life.” I found it interesting that a psychiatrist who deals with all things mental would share this beautiful quote! Even in the midst of mental challenges or mental illness or even desiring mental clarity (in contrast to feeling mentally overloaded and/or overwhelmed), joy can be a potent underpinning of our lives. It was Henry David Thoreau who said this … all those years ago, he was onto something, wasn’t he?!

What do you do to bring JOY into your life?

As I continue to reflect on the recent Mayo Clinic holistic wellness conference, I found it interesting that almost every speaker talked about breathing. (And yes, Barb Schommer and I talked about it in our Self-Care Salon that we presented!) She and I had a recent experience with a hospital patient … here’s the story:

We worked with a man who had had a procedure to rid his knee of infection. He had just finished physical therapy so was in some pain (7 out of 10) and was extremely anxious (9). He was worried whether or not the surgery had eliminated the infection and if not, what this meant for next steps. His wife and adult daughter were also in the room.

Barb immediately began doing Healing Touch, specifically energy clearing while I played the harp. About 15 minutes later, he looked like he was crying. I motioned for his wife and daughter to come over to the bed to comfort him – the wife stood opposite Barb and his daughter held his feet.

I whispered to the daughter, “Would he like the song ‘Amazing Grace?’” and she said, “Yes and also ‘O Danny Boy’ – this was the song that he and I danced to at my wedding.” These songs brought tears to everyone present.

Barb also taught him about his breath and how breathing could help him release any fear or pain. As we finished our work together, he was peaceful and very grateful. His pain score was reduced to 4 and his anxiety was also 4.

To discuss breathing with patients and families in the hospital environment always feels like we are giving them a life skill. What an honor to get to do this work!

The second keynote speaker at the recent Mayo Clinic’s holistic wellness conference was Henry Emmons, MD. He gave a wonderful, thought-provoking presentation on “Restoring Resilience.”

He began his discussion by inviting us to reflect on our “container” and attending to it (hence the bucket to the left!!). What is draining it? What is filling it up? As well as suggesting, “We may need to bring in other things, blending science and heart wisdom to sustain us, bringing us into balance and improving our resilience.”

On the next day of this conference, I was keynoting about self-care. I was struck by how these thoughts that Dr. Emmons was suggesting about resilience also relate to how well we take care of ourselves. In other words, “filling our buckets” is important to nurture our body/mind/spirit (eg. self-care) and impacts how resilient we are in many different situations.

I am passionate about sharing my message and am honored to be at the following places this week:

• July 22 – Holistic Health & Healing Summer Institute. “Heart-Centered Healing” at Woodwinds Health Campus in Woodbury, MN at 8:30 a.m. (Registration required.)
• July 25 – Mayo Clinic’s Holistic Wellness Conference (Engaging Body, Mind and Spirit). “Self-Care Salon” at Siebens Building in Rochester, MN at 11:40 a.m. (Registration required.)

​If you are interested in having me conduct a presentation or Healing Harp Concert at your location, I welcome these opportunities. Click here for more information about my presentations. I look forward to working together!